Dino volleyball trounce Hawks

In the past few years, the region volleyball match-ups between North Sanpete and Carbon have been epics. The Tuesday night battle was more of the same as Carbon triumphed 13-25, 25-19, 25-19, 25- 14 over the Hawks. For Coach Cristin Johnson it was the worst and the best she has seen out of her team all year.

In game one, the Dinos came out loose and confident, but the Hawks came ready to do battle. Shortly into the match, North Sanpete found their rhythm and took it to Carbon. The scrappy home team began to get their feet under them, but it was too little, too late. They lost game one, something that home town fans have not witnessed in many years.

Johnson took her team to task between games and it seemed to get them going. But the Hawks felt the momentum they had in game one and kept it nip and tuck for most of the match. The Dinos pulled away in the end. In game two it was North Sanpete trying to regain momentum and for a while it looked like they might take the edge. But Carbon didn't panic and pulled up and ahead as the game wore on to put the nail in the coffin.

Needing just one more game to put the Hawks away, Carbon came out with a vengeance in the final confrontation. The Hawks were not able to match the intensity and it was all Dinos in the final round. Britni Greenwood and Joy Malone stepped up their games to the best level they have played yet this season and the match went to Carbon.

Greenwood ended up with 18 kills and Malone contributed another 11 in the offensive assault. Cheree Julian served up a pair of aces to help in the attack while Julia Potts dished up 35 set assists. Defensively Brittany Gustas and Chantell Jensen kept the Dinos in it with 29 digs between them.

A relieved Johnson was all smiles by the end of the match, a sharp contrast to where she was at the end of game one when she had to lower the boom on her squad. "You just have to know when it's time to get tough and when to let them work through things. There is a lot of experience out there and most of the time they can work through it. I mainly told them that this is too good of a team for us to play from behind. We needed to play offensively and not defensively."

The team heads to Castle Dale on Thursday to take on the Spartans. Varsity game time is at 7 p.m.